The Cursed Shell

12

"First of all," Dhawan said, sipping the green-tea offered by Mr Lamb. "We've to gather some information about the killer, if possible."

Suddenly, his phone beeped. He fished the phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen.

"Unknown number. Not important", he denied the call the pushed the phone back into his pocket.

He opened his mouth again to speak. But before he could, his cell–phone rang again. He again pulled his phone out.

"Again the same number?" he muttered in a low voice with almost no expression.

"Attend it," Lamb said. "It may be important."

Dhawan accepted the call and pushed the phone towards his ear. "Hello?"

"It is secret agent Dhawan, right?" an English voice cracked through the phone.

'I'm a secret agent, not a celeb!' Dhawan thought. 'It must be RAW.'

"Who's this?" he asked politely.

"You wouldn't like to know that," the voice chuckled. "I think that is because I'm the killer of six popular Sanskrit scholars. I came to know that you are appointed to save the remaining two."

Dhawan stood frozen and widened his eyes.

"I know someone else who knows about these deaths too," the man on line said. "I guess that poor child is sixteen only."

Dhawan understood what the guy was talking about.

"Look," Dhawan barked, "you will not do anything to Brute!"

The assassin laughed while talking with Dhawan on phone. "Well I wasn't talking about your adopted son. He would live for another day. I was talking about a girl named Krystene in the orphanage where your adopted son was brought up. Right now I'm off to the airport for India. You have only a few hours to save that girl before I reach India and kill her. And yes....don't try to trace this call, this is not my phone." And the line went dead.

Although Dhawan's phone wasn't kept on speaker mode, the whole conversation was audible to Brute, Mr Todd Lamb, Crunchy and Joshua Lamb

"We've to stop him!" Brute cried. "Call your agency. Do something!"

"I'm a private detective, I don't work for any agency," Dhawan said politely. "And this is a secret case. Even RAW isn't aware about this. We can't do anything for her. And we should focus on this case rather than that. We don't have much time. And I think that the killer is just trying to drive us out of time."

"You can't be that cruel!" Brute snapped.

"We have to be cruel sometimes", Dhawan said.

"I think the boy is right," Lamb stepped ahead. "Your work is to protect me. And do whatever I say. Save the girl."

"But Mr Lamb," Dhawan argued. "If I go to India then I wouldn't be back any soon. And what about you?"

"If the killer is in India," Lamb said, "you need not to be worried about me. To kill me, the killer would have to come to America."

There was a long silence.

"I've her cell–phone's number", Brute said.

"My phone will not reach her. How the hell can I call her when I'm out–of–station?" Dhawan yelled. 'Actually, out-of-nation!' he thought.

"Maaow!" Crunchy suggested.

"Yeah," Dhawan smiled. "A WhatsApp–call!"

Krystene was lying on her orphanage's bed with her ears covered with a pair of headphones. She was in a red T-shirt and black trousers. Suddenly her phone vibrated and the ringtone of her cell–phone thundered in her ears instead of the song she was listening.

She pulled the headphones out, giving an irritated expression. She was already upset as Brute had gone from the orphanage that morning, and now an unknown number's WhatsApp call was irritating her.

"Unknown number," she whispered to herself, "not important."

She denied the call. She was just going to resume the paused song she was listening when the screen of her cell–phone turned black.

"Damn it!" she stood up, whining. 'Battery's dead. I'll have to charge it!'

She walked towards the charging point.